Using AdWords Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC can help you get more conversions at lower cost, and reduce the time required to manually optimize your bids. When using either one, changing your ad rotation from “Optimize for clicks” to “Optimize for conversions” increases conversions by an average of 5%. That’s because “Optimize for conversions” shows your higher-converting ads more often.

To help you get better performance with AdWords, we’ll be linking these options more closely together in a series of changes that we plan to roll out during the week of November 12th, 2012.

What’s changing

New ad rotation default when using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC. When you first activate Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC in a campaign, your ad rotation setting will change to “Optimize for conversions” by default. We recommend this setting to get the most conversions, but you’re free to change to a different option.

Eligible campaigns will switch to “Optimize for conversions.”As we announced last December, all campaigns using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC which are set to use “Optimize for clicks” will be switched to “Optimize for conversions.” You can opt out of this update via this form up until November 9th, but you may miss out on getting more conversions by doing so.Update: The migration of eligible Conversion Optimizer and Enhanced CPC campaigns will now occur during the week of 11/26.

“Rotate evenly” change for campaigns using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC. As we announced earlier this month, campaigns set to “Rotate evenly” automatically begin to optimize for clicks when ads in an ad group are unchanged for 90 days. Similarly, when using Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced CPC, campaigns set to “Rotate evenly” will automatically begin to optimize for conversions when ads in an ad group are unchanged after 90 days.

After these changes roll out, you’ll still have control over your ad rotation settings and can make changes at any time.

More information

To learn more about the Conversion Optimizer and Enhanced CPC, you can watch the following short videos. For more details on ad rotation, please visit the AdWords Help Center.

Back in June, we responded to feedback about changes to how ad rotation works in AdWords. First, we increased the time period in which campaigns set to “Rotate evenly” would shift to optimizing ads for clicks. The new period is 90 days instead of 30 days. Second, we provided a form to opt-out of the changes. Third, we said that if opt-out demand was significant, then we’d provide the option to rotate ads indefinitely directly in the AdWords interface.

Rotate indefinitely optionTo date, fewer than 1% of accounts have opted out of the ad rotation changes. But we’ve decided to provide the option for ads to “Rotate indefinitely” in the AdWords web interface anyway.

If you select “Rotate indefinitely” option for your campaign, we will show lower-performing ads about as often as higher-performing ads. For most advertisers, this may result in fewer, more expensive clicks and your ad appearing in a lower position. So we generally don't recommend "Rotate indefinitely." But the choice is yours.

To view or adjust ad rotation in the AdWords interface, click on the Settings tab of the desired campaign. Then, in the "Advanced settings" section, click “Ad delivery: Ad rotation, frequency capping.”

Form discontinuedWith every option now available directly in the AdWords interface, today we’re discontinuing the ad rotation change opt-out request form. If you previously requested to opt-out of the ad rotation changes, we will change campaigns in your account that are set to “Rotate evenly” to “Rotate indefinitely” near the end of October. For all new campaigns where you want ads to rotate indefinitely, you should select the option directly in AdWords and not rely on the opt-out submitted earlier via the form.

FeedbackWe do a lot of testing to gauge the potential impact of AdWords changes on both users and advertisers. But we also rely on your direct feedback and suggestions to continue to make AdWords more effective and useful. We’re always listening through our Google client services teams, our AdWords Community, social media channels (including our Google+ page), and commentary on other sites across the web.

Last month we announced that we would be changing how creative rotation works in AdWords. Specifically, we changed the even rotation setting to rotate evenly for a period of 30 days, after which AdWords would optimize to show your higher performing creatives more frequently.

In the past month, we've heard a number of concerns from you about this change. Thank you for all of the feedback -- we've been listening carefully to determine the right course of action. The concerns have focused on (1) the lack of an opt-out for this change and (2) the potential that the 30 day even rotation window might be shorter than your testing window for new ads. You also inquired about why we made the change.

First, we’d like to share a little more about why we updated how creative rotation works. With the modified Rotate evenly setting, our tests indicate that we will provide you with more valuable traffic in an automated, efficient manner. We've found that, on average, optimized creative rotation results in an increase in click-through rate and an increase in total conversion volume for advertisers. Here’s an example describing the benefit (note: data is intended for illustrative purposes only):

Advertisement A has a 3% CTR, while Advertisement B has a 1% CTR. Under the original Rotate evenly setting, the ads would show roughly evenly, resulting in an average CTR of around 2%. Under the new setting, Advertisement A will show more frequently after the even rotation window has passed, bringing the average CTR closer to 3%, or a 50% increase in clicks. Our systems will also continue to run Advertisement B for a low fraction of traffic to continue to test how well it performs.

Also, in response to your feedback, we're planning to make two changes to the setting. First, we'll expand the even rotation period from 30 days to 90 days to give you a longer window for testing new ads. Second, if you still wish to have your ads rotate evenly indefinitely, we're going to offer an opt-out of this change. You can opt-out by filling in your information on this form or by contacting your account representative. Both of these changes will go into effect on June 11, 2012.

If we see a large amount of demand for the opt-out over the next few weeks, we'll also offer the opt-out in the AdWords interface directly.

We're confident that the changes we've made to ad rotation enable us to show higher quality ads to our users and better performing ads for our advertisers. However, we also realize that it is important to provide you with the freedom and time to decide what works best for you and that's why we're announcing these changes today. Please continue to share your feedback so that we can build solutions to meet your advertising needs.

AdWords currently offers three ad rotation settings: optimize for clicks, optimize for conversions, and rotate evenly. Using the “rotate” setting for ad rotation is helpful for testing new creatives, but when run indefinitely can inhibit advertiser performance and deliver less relevant ads to our users.

Starting next week, the “rotate” setting for ad rotation will change. Instead of rotating creatives for an indefinite period of time, this setting will only rotate for a period of 30 days. After that, the setting will then optimize to show the ads expected to generate the most clicks. Every time a creative is enabled or edited, the ads in that ad group will rotate more evenly for a new period of 30 days.

This change will be rolling out next week. At that time, ad groups with creatives that haven’t been added or modified in the past thirty days will see this new ad rotation behavior. Otherwise, this change will begin 30 days after your last creative was enabled or edited.